Get Cheaper Insurance By Making Your Car Safer

You can reduce your car insurance premiums by looking at long term ways to improve your driving safety. People with no claims and accident free profiles are lower risk and most often qualify for some of the cheapest car insurance available.

As we prepare for the long holidays, many of us will be journeying in our cars to see family and friends or perhaps just heading off to a nice seaside or holiday destination. It would be wise to consider a few safety related things that will make your car and your journey just that much safer. It doesn’t matter if your car is new or old, the following tips can be inspected and tipped off for any make of vehicle, and you don’t have to wait for holidays either – you can action these points at any time for safer motoring. A safer you is a cheaper insurance – and who doesn’t want to be safe in a car anyway!?

Wiper Blade – check and replace

Check and replace your wiper blades – chances are you have never checked these or only remember how awful they are at removing rain from the windscreen when it rains. A bit like wiping water with cling film – just terrible. Perhaps this has just reminded you to have them replaced – and it’s as easy as heading down to Midas with your VIN or make and model and they will help you. If you can’t see where you are going, you are moments away from a crash. That’s why new windscreen wiper blades are top of the list.

Wiper Soap

At 120km/h bugs have an interesting way of smearing themselves across the windscreen and an even more annoying way of not coming off with the wipers. The trick to getting them off is simple – you need to have liquid soap in your wiper fluid – and don’t use dish soap as it will crack the windscreen’s rubber seals. Whilst you are at Midas, go get some proper windscreen wiper soap, or you could use some liquid hand soap in a pinch. Get them off as soon as the bugs hit the windscreen and splatter. When they dry it’s so much harder. Just for laughs…

Tyre pressure

Only four points of rubber connect you to the ground when you are speeding along, and if one of them isn’t right, it could end badly. It may feel OK to drive along when one tyre has a slow puncture, but it’s a very foolish thing to do. Cornering or hard braking with under inflated tyres will result in loss of control of your car and you would be very lucky to walk away unscathed. Go check and repair any low pressure tyres. Speedy or HiQ will find and fix a slow leak for under R150 – and sometimes much less if it’s a bad valve. It might not even need a repair, as sometimes a small nail can safely be pulled out and the hole closes up without leaking. A larger screw can damage the rubber a bit, and might need a plug to fix it properly – which means they will need to re-balance the tyre. All of this is much cheaper than a new tyre and it will keep you safer.

Tyre Tread

Only racing cars have smooth tyres – for the rest of us it’s a least 3mm of tread. If you’re not sure, its vital to check the tyre tread’s above the wear limiters. These are the little ridges that are about 3mm above the lower part of the bigger groove in your car’s tyre. When you tyre wears down so that these little ridges are touching the road surface, it’s time to replace the tyres. Why? Well under dry circumstances smooth or bald tyres are actually better because more rubber touches the road surface – BUT when it rains, you need the grooves to displace the water outwards otherwise you will aquaplane or skid across the road. Crash Bang = premium increase! Not ideal.

Still not sure – pop into HiQ and ask them to check your tyres – they will do so free of charge!

Reflector Jacket

One of the most dangerous places to be in a breakdown situation, is inside your car on the side of the highway. Smart drivers and passengers know to get out of the car and wait on the side of the road until help comes. Even smarter drivers will pack a small reflector jacket – also known as a “hi vis vest” into their car and wear it when they have broken down. To be visible on the roadside is everything when it comes to personal safety. They are cheap and fold up very small for when you need them. Available at pienaarbros.co.za